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Adventures in depotting eyeshadows!

7/18/2012

6 Comments

 
Picture
My newly depotted eyeshadows, in MUFE freestyle palettes! Palette 1 (left): Urban Decay vegan palette, various Cargo essential palette shadows, various Stila shadows. Palette (middle): miscellanious shadows on top (including The Body Shop and Urban Decay) and MAC shadows on bottom. Palette 3 (right): Ulta shadows, 1 Hard Candy, 1 NYX, and the Too Faced Glamourland palette shadows.
My fingers have a few burns and bits of glue stuck to them, and there were a few casualties, but I'm pretty pleased with how my first major depotting attempt went! I've depotted a few eyeshadows in the past, but not recently. My eyeshadow collection has grown to the point where I forget that I have certain products, or I don't use certain products because I have to sift through dozens of items to find them. So I decided that although my OCD tendencies make me want to leave them well enough alone, I should depot my shadows.  

I've been looking at different freestyle palettes, and have been comparing reviews (MAC, Z-palette, Another Soul [on Etsy], Unii, TKB, Stars Makeup Haven, MUFE and DIY options). I have a few MAC 15-pan palettes, some of which I've removed the plastic dividers so I can put in more shadows, but I haven't tried or even seen any others in person. I've been using the shadows in the MAC palettes more frequently than my other eyeshadow singles or palettes, but the closures on the MAC palettes keep breaking on me, so I wanted to move them into something more sturdy, and also get additional palettes for the rest of my shadow collection.

When it came down to it, MUFE palettes seemed to offer the quality, price, and size that I wanted. They're only $10 each (plus shipping--you have to order them by phone from a MUFE store, but it's painless, I promise!), they're much larger than my MAC palettes, and they're made of metal. While they're probably prone to denting and scratches, it's still better than a plastic palette with a broken clasp! So I ordered three. The biggest problem is that depotted MAC pans are not magnetic, and the MAC refills are only weakly magnetic. I ordered some really strong mini magnets from ebay just in case I needed them.
I was pretty impressed when the MUFE palettes got here, and was excited to depot my shadows as soon as possible. Again, although I had done this before, I was a little nervous.

EDIT--I used GossMakeupArtist's oven method to depot my shadows. It seemed very efficient and I didn't think I damaged my shadows... Until I tried using some of them today. Maybe the oven was too hot, or I left them in there too long, but the shadows are now HARD and I can barely pick up any pigment with my brush :( 

While I did a crazy amount of depotting today, I probably need to buy a few more palettes so I can depot more of my stash! But I'm excited that my shadows will be so easy to access.

Have you depotted any products? 
6 Comments
kendahl link
7/18/2012 11:35:10 pm

I had never heard of depotting until now. It looks like a brilliant idea! Most of my eyeshadows are loose powder, though.

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Stef link
7/19/2012 11:51:04 pm

You are much braver than me! I tried to depot...once. I broke the shadow. And so ended my depotting! But I love the idea of seeing all your shades at once.

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Marilyn link
7/20/2012 03:25:11 pm

@kendahl--do you like using loose powder? I'm too clumsy for that, but there are some loose powders that are just so pretty that they're worth the mess I make! There's a way to press loose shadows into pans though, and I might try that :)

Stef--the very first time I tried it, I broke a few shadows. I gouged a few shadows doing it this time, and had to toss a few, but none of my favorites fortunately! The oven method is probably the easiest and least potentially damaging in my experience.

I wish I had taken step by step pictures so it would be easier to understand how to do this!

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lupe
8/7/2012 06:52:13 am

hi r the urban decay vegan pallet eyeshadows the same sie as mac or regular urban deacy shadows? will they fit in my mac pallet?

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Marilyn @ Lipgloss and Spandex link
8/7/2012 07:58:13 am

@lupe, the Urban Decay Vegan palette eyeshadow pans are smaller than MAC or regular Urban Decay eyeshadow pans. Also, I'm not sure if you'll need to attach a magnet to the bottom or not to have them work with a MAC palette.

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Beka link
2/8/2015 05:55:47 pm

Hopefully you will still see this. I was wondering if any of your depotted shadows were Too Faced single shadows by chance? Like the ones in the black flower shaped thing. I am having trouble trying to figure out how to depot these in particular...

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    Marilyn

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